


CRAWL TO HEAVEN ON GOLDEN STAIRS

by ivorygates



Category: Stargate SG-1
Genre: Dark, Dark SG-1, First Time, Kink, Light BDSM, M/M, Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-18
Updated: 2012-12-18
Packaged: 2017-11-21 12:18:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,510
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/597664
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ivorygates/pseuds/ivorygates
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's the first time he's ever been to Jackson's apartment.  Cam's not really sure why he's here; all he knows is that he couldn't stay away, not when Jackson suggested he might like to drop by at 2100 (yeah, okay, he <em>said</em> nine o'clock, but Cam's been on a twenty-four hour clock for a long time.)  The funny thing is, Cam's pretty sure that he and Jackson aren't on those kinds of terms.  Not really.</p>
            </blockquote>





	CRAWL TO HEAVEN ON GOLDEN STAIRS

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [A Valley Of Dry Bones](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/14608) by Synecdochic. 



He has done and been many things over the course of his life. Sometimes he thinks his life can be measured out in (imperfect) decades, and each of the people he is (has been) would be a stranger to the others. What would the happy oblivious child of his first eight years of life have to say to the arrogant precocious sixteen-year-old college student, who was only willing to love those things that could not hurt him? Or that student to the twenty-five-year-old (eternal) postdoc, on the verge of jettisoning a bright future to pursue an impossible theory?

What would any of those other selves have to say to the man he was at thirty, a man who had no common history with any of them, a prince of Abydos?

Some of them might have recognized the man he was at thirty-one. Lost again and bent on revenge. Sometimes Daniel thinks he has been lost ever since. Enough so that it's ceased to seem like being lost, because at least there's a continuity of experience, and anything you do for long enough begins to seem familiar, and having spent more of his life wandering in an epistemological wilderness than he's done anything else, perhaps that wilderness is home.

At the very least, he has enough experience of being lost to recognize the condition in others. He knows every single way there is to pretend _(to yourself, to others)_ that you know where you are and where you're going, because the illusion of direction is an important survival mechanism _(at least when it works.)_

Cameron Mitchell _(open gaze and easy smile, and only Daniel can see the shadows at the back of those eyes)_ is lost.

He has done and been many things over the course of his life, and seen lives _(his own, others')_ fall to pieces at his touch. He's taught himself not to mind. Sam said once that entropy is a natural process of all systems. Yeats must have been a physicist then: _'Things fall apart; the center cannot hold; Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world.'_ He knows (having spent a decade listening to Sam) that living systems spend their lives fighting entropy until they lose. He supposes it's another way of describing what they've all been doing; assuming there's such a thing as cultural (or historical) entropy. And Jack would say that the House always wins in the end, but even though it happens to be true _(Nineveh and Tyre and black holes and white dwarfs all agree)_ Jack has spent his life and career refusing to face facts. Bending reality through will and determination and teaching trained scientists to do the same. Now it's time for Daniel to apply these hard-learned lessons: reverse entropy, or simply ignore it, and teach Cameron Mitchell to ignore it too.

The first aspect of the problem is communication. It's an interesting puzzle, since what Daniel needs to communicate with Mitchell about is something that Mitchell doesn't want to admit exists. Of course Mitchell knows there's a problem. Mitchell defines it differently: _he_ isn't lost, everything else is. It creates an entertaining exercise in perfect solipsism -- or it _would_ be entertaining if Mitchell's existence in a Mitchell-centric cosmos weren't leading to disasters rejoicing (like the little hills) on every side, since Cameron Mitchell is gregarious by nature, and does not take well to isolation, however imposed. Pride and fear (bound together by stubbornness) are a bad combination; Daniel knows this from experience. It's been a very long time since he's been afraid of anything, and he's known a certain truth for even longer: that finding one's way into a translation and into a psyche involve much the same skills, and that people are far more easily-manipulated than texts.

He realizes what his approach will have to be some time before he decides to commit to it. Not because it shocks him (few things do anymore) or because it's intrinsically objectionable (few things ever have been), but because of its potential to add complication to lives (his, Mitchell's) that are already complicated and growing more complex by the day. In the end, it is a transaction, albeit one Mitchell is not aware of participating in, and the question is simple: is the value offered less than or at least equivalent to the value received. (If everything in Sam's world can be expressed in terms of mathematics, most of the important matters in Daniel's can be derived from economic forces: the desire to gain or hold or increase value. If more people understood basic economics, the study of history would be a simple matter.) He decides that it is. Mitchell is worth preserving _(life and sanity and form and function),_ and it will not, after all, be so very difficult. He's already aware of Mitchell's tastes and inclinations. Possibly more so than Mitchell is, but Mitchell is not only lost, but (at the moment) alone, and it is difficult to form an absolute understanding of the self in isolation. This is a matter in which Daniel will be able to assist Mitchell toward achieving a greater clarity, and if that clarity is something that Mitchell intermittently finds unwelcome, his distaste for that self-knowledge will be offset by the distraction that Daniel also intends to provide. It would not do to allow Mitchell to wander off before Daniel is finished helping him find himself.

#

It's the first time he's ever been to Jackson's apartment. Cam's not really sure why he's here; all he knows is that he couldn't stay away, not when Jackson suggested he might like to drop by at 2100 (yeah, okay, he _said_ nine o'clock, but Cam's been on a twenty-four hour clock for a long time.) The funny thing is, Cam's pretty sure that he and Jackson aren't on those kinds of terms. Not really. Jackson's been to Cam's place, but that's because Cam went barging in resurrecting ancient history, getting SG-1's Team Nights started up again, but that's not quite the same thing.

And he knows that doing that _(doing things like that)_ is just flailing along behind, but it doesn't matter how many bad examples he's got to go by -- commanders coming in to established wings or squadrons or units and trying to play catch up, pretending they've been there all along _(for the days of glory, for all the things that made the team a team),_ trying to book-learn the things you can only get from _doing_ \-- somehow he can't manage to stop himself. He knows that everything he does just makes things worse -- shows them how anxious he is, how eager to please. If he could talk himself out of digging his own grave with good intentions, he would. He can't.

And the fact that he can't makes him feel like a car with no steering and no brakes at the top of a very steep hill. He's not going to admit the thought scares him. He won't.

He lifts his hand and knocks at the door.

There's a wait long enough for Cam to wonder what he's doing here, why Jackson invited him, to decide to leave -- although it's really only a minute or two -- before the door opens. Cam blinks in surprise.

He's seen Jackson in uniform (a lot) and in scrubs (too damned often for his taste, because Jackson in scrubs means Jackson injured which means Cam's fucked up somehow) and Jackson in civvies (at the end of the day, sometimes at the beginning, on Team Nights), but he's never seen Jackson like this. A wifebeater and a pair of loose thin cotton pants, and Cam feels his face getting hot _(the man looks like he's just gotten out of_ bed, _for God's sake)_ and Cam doesn't know where to rest his eyes, and it doesn't help at all that Jackson's _barefoot._ When he finally gets himself sorted out enough to get his eyes back on Jackson's face, Jackson's smiling, and oh, Lord, that doesn't help at all, because there's something in that smile of Jackson's that just makes Cam want to roll over and show his belly, and that's not the way things are supposed to be, not at all.

There's one, two, three beats of silence, and Cam realizes that Jackson's waiting for him to _say something,_ and he takes a deep breath _(feeling like he hasn't breathed in a while),_ and he realizes in horror that he has absolutely no idea what to say. Because saying he's here because Jackson told him to be here can't be the right thing (although it's the truth) and he's got no other reason for standing in this hallway.

So he takes another deep breath -- and coughs, because he forgot to exhale -- and says, "Beer. I brought beer." Because that's true too, and it's less damaging _(why is he thinking in terms of damage?)_ than the other thing that's true.

And Jackson's smile warms a little, for just a moment, and Cam feels as if he's done something _right_ (and he feels like he wants to _please_ Jackson, but no, that isn't his job) and Jackson says, "Good. That's good," and he steps back, opening the door wider so Cam can enter.

And Cam isn't sure why it's so hard to force himself to take that single step over Jackson's threshold, because Jackson isn't going to _hurt_ him, and Cam wouldn't have come here if he didn't want to, and he's tired of things that don't make any sense, so he shoves all that confusion down into the back of his mind where he doesn't have to listen to it and walks inside.

He's not sure what he was expecting, but not this. Maybe (he supposes) something that looked like Jackson's office, only maybe with more furniture -- lots of books and artifacts and things, kind of like a cross between a library and a museum. But the apartment isn't like that at all. What he can see of it, anyway, because either Jackson hasn't paid his electric bill lately or he's got a real thing for mood lighting: once Cam gets into the hallway and the door's shut and locked behind him it's dark, and when he gets to the living room -- walking on ahead of Jackson because the hallway's just narrow enough that for Jackson to get past him and to walk ahead of him would take a close pass that Cam isn't quite sure would be a good idea with Jackson in his _pajamas_ \-- the only light is about a dozen white pillar candles over on the sideboard. It's enough light to show Cam that the living room is a lot more spartan than his preconceptions have led him to imagine. A desk in one corner, flanked by bookcases. Couch, chair, coffeetable, sideboard, and there are a few things on the walls but it's too dark to make out just what they are.

"Plannin' to keep me in the dark?" he asks.

"Not for long," Jackson answers.

He feels the heat of Jackson's body as Jackson approaches, and Cam's mind just freezes at the proximity, because Jackson here, in the warm and flickering shadows of Jackson's living room, is a different man entirely than Jackson beneath the cool fluorescents of the SGC, Jackson beneath alien suns, Jackson in the safe incandescence of Cam's living room ... Jackson anywhere Cam has ever encountered him, in fact. And he feels Jackson's hands slide around his wrist _(warm and strong and calloused)_ and slip down over the back of his hand and take the weight of the six-pack he's forgotten he's holding. It's an effort to let go.

"I'll just put this in the fridge. Make yourself comfortable. You want one?" Jackson asks.

"Please," Cam answers, and it ought to be automatic politeness, but somehow the word comes out the wrong way. As if he's forgotten what he meant to say. Or is saying something else entirely, and he doesn't want to hear whatever that might be.

He sinks down onto the couch, feeling light-boned and as if he doesn't know _what the hell he's doing here._ It's a good assessment of the situation, because he really has no fucking clue _(what he knows is that the back of his hand still burns where Jackson touched him, and his palm tingles with the craving to have turned his hand over and taken Jackson's hand in his.)_ He can't imagine why Jackson invited him over to sit in the dark. He can't imagine why Jackson invited him over at all, now that he thinks about it -- it isn't as if they're going to watch television, after all, because looking around the living room, Cam doesn't see one anywhere. And it isn't as if they're going to have a nice chat, because he's been following SG-1 around _(like a lost puppy)_ long enough to know that he and Jackson don't have one damned thing in common besides two letters, a dash, and a number. And Cam's late to that party by a good ten years, and he wishes it would stop hurting, and it won't.

Another thing Cam wishes is that Jackson would turn on some lights, because he thinks _(somehow)_ that would make it easier to think, but apparently Jackson knows his own apartment well enough to find his way around it in the dark. Cam stares into the bank of candles, dazzling himself with the flames, and hears the sound of the refrigerator door open and close. He's working out sentences and speeches and explanations in his head (he's pretty sure that questions would be a bad idea) that all come down to: 'time to go, sorry to have bothered you,' but then Jackson's back, sitting down right next to him on the couch and nudging his hand with a cold bottle. And Cam vaguely remembers saying he'd like a beer, and he can't exactly jump up and _bolt_ the moment Jackson hands him one, so he takes it. Maybe it'll give him time to think.

The beer is ice-cold (too cold to be from the six-pack he brought) and his mouth is so dry it hurts. He tips the bottle back and gulps. The beer's so cold it doesn't have any taste at all, so cold it starts a dull ache through his sinuses, and all that cold doesn't do one damned thing to cut the feeling of fever he's carried ever since Jackson opened that door.

"Careful," Jackson says, reaching out to touch him lightly on the knee. "You don't want to drink too fast."

And Cam swallows _(hard)_ already lowering the bottle _(it's light in his hand now),_ turning automatically toward the touch and the voice, and all that does is bring his knee over to press up against Jackson's. In the back of his mind Cam's expecting Jackson to shift away, but he doesn't. The surprise of it makes him look up. Jackson's face _(Jackson's skin)_ is luminous in the candlelight. Cam can't see his eyes, between the shadows and the bright pinpoints of fire on the lenses of his glasses; he isn't sure he wants to. But Jackson's face is turned toward him, and even half-masked as it is, Cam is sure that Jackson is watching him.

"Why am I here?" Cam blurts out.

"I invited you, and you came," Jackson answers, and his voice is sweet and soft and matter-of-fact. "Why do you suppose you did that, Mitchell?"

Cam doesn't know _(he does know)_ and the answer crowding his throat and begging for release is the wrong answer _(he knows it's the wrong answer)_ so he tips his bottle up again. The beer is a degree or two warmer now. He drains the bottle. "You tell me," he answers.

"I get into trouble when I tell people things they already know," Jackson answers, and there's something _wrong_ about the way he says it. The tone and the words don't go together, because the words are apologetic, and maybe like Jackson's even making a joke (not that Cam's ever heard him make a joke, or not a funny one), but the tone isn't anything like that. It's as sharp and unforgiving as a knife; threat and warning and the contrast makes Cam dizzy. _What kind of trouble?_ he wants to ask, because if Jackson's in trouble, he wants...

"I should go," Cam says, and his throat is dry and his voice isn't quite steady. He can feel his pulse thudding in his temples, like a painless headache.

"You just got here," Jackson answers chidingly. "And you shouldn't drive so soon after drinking. I'll get you another beer." He gets to his feet.

It's as if Jackson's absence sets Cam free to think, but what he's thinking about is what Jackson's just said, and he can't make those last two sentences go together in any rational fashion. He gets to his feet -- okay, maybe he can't drive (Jackson's probably right about that) but he can walk -- but by the time he has, Jackson's back again, bottle in hand. He reaches out his free hand and places it on Cam's shoulder, and Cam can feel the heat of it even through his shirt. Jackson doesn't press down, but Cam feels his knees buckle and then he's sitting on the couch again. He takes the bottle when it's offered to him, clutching it as if it can save him _(save him from what?)_

"You aren't drinking," he says aloud, because somewhere in the swirl of thoughts he doesn't want to examine too closely is the notion of _parity_ \-- that he wants to be on an equal footing with Jackson, or wants Jackson on an equal footing with him -- and it's something he tries not to think about because he knows it's impossible.

Jackson -- still standing -- gestures toward the end-table, and Cam sees a wineglass there, its surface beaded with moisture. The candlelight makes it glow as if it's lit from within. White wine, Cam supposes. Jackson picks it up and sits down again, as close as before, and Cam really wishes he wouldn't. He'd like to press the bottle in his hands against his forehead -- or just pour it over himself -- but he can't. He's a guest here.

Jackson raises his glass to his lips, and Cam hears ice clink. He sees candlelight slide around the rim of the glass, and realizes he's staring at Jackson's face, Jackson's mouth, and he won't. He _won't._ He turns his head deliberately and stares into the candleflames instead.

"What do you want?" he hears himself ask.

"Ah," Jackson says, and he sounds approving, and Cam desperately wishes the note of approval in Jackson's voice didn't make him feel so damned _good._ "I want you to answer the question."

And Cam can't think of any question he's been asked since he got here, and he only realizes after he's taken a swallow -- nerves, the need to do something with his hands -- that it probably isn't such a good idea to go on drinking, and he feels more light-headed than the bottle of beer he's already drunk could account for, and he can still feel the press of Jackson's knee against his knee _(against his thigh)_ and he isn't sure whether it's really there right now or not. "Question," he says, and the single word comes out flat and grating.

And most people would at least _tell him what the question is_ at this point (if the point is to get an answer.) Jackson decides to lecture.

"Socrates said that the unexamined life is not worth living. You know him, I'm sure -- you're not an uneducated man, Mitchell. Most people don't examine their lives, or their motivations, and as a result they blunder through a series of easily-preventable disasters. And they never get what they really want."

"You invited me here to find out what I want?" Cam asks. He tries hard not to sound as incredulous as he feels _(it would be rude),_ but Jackson has never struck him as giving a rat's ass about his likes and dislikes in the entire term of their acquaintance.

"No," Jackson says, and there's a note in his voice as if Cam's given the wrong answer to a question Jackson knows perfectly well he knows the right answer to, and he doesn't want to look back toward the sound of that voice, but he can't stop himself. "I invited you here so that you could tell me what you want."

Jackson's face is stern and unyielding, and Cam thinks of the way your senses get flipped around sometimes, so that cold burns, and heat -- for one shocking instant -- feels like ice, and in that instant he doesn't know whether Jackson loves him or hates him, but he can feel the force of Jackson's will. A force like heat or cold or gravity, and he feels the strength in it, and he's so caught by it that he loses the battle not to _listen._

_I want to stop. I don't want to fuck up. Please help me._

He hasn't wanted to think that. He hasn't wanted to _know_ he thinks that. It's loss, it's defeat, because he's always been the go-to guy, the leader, and if he can't be strong enough to carry that weight he doesn't know who he is.

And while Cam's struggling to _unhear_ that inner voice, Jackson reaches out and cups the side of his face in his hand. Jackson's been holding the glass; his hand is chilled and wet. It feels good, and Cam closes his eyes, and _can't-shouldn't-mustn't_ flickers through his mind like summer lightning, but he's come so far into disaster already, and deep inside _(where he doesn't want to look; where he can't keep from seeing)_ there's a part of him that just wants to _stop._ Be stopped. In any way it takes.

"It's all right, Mitchell," Jackson says gently. "But you need to tell me."

Jackson's thumb traces over his cheekbone, and Cam realizes he's pressing his face against Jackson's palm, and that Jackson is letting him. He hears a click -- Jackson setting down his glass -- and then he feels the bottle being removed from his hand and set aside as well.

Then Jackson's hand -- his other hand -- comes down on Cam's thigh. As if Jackson is laying claim to him, and that -- the thought of that, of being _claimed_ \-- makes Cam feel as if he's drugged and drowning and being rescued, all at once. He feels the ache of want, of need; feels himself getting hard, and it's sex, and it's more than that. And he doesn't know what to _do_ about it _(because he hasn't known what to do about anything for so long.)_

"Please," Cam says, and he isn't even sure what he's asking for. But he's asking.

Silence, and he knows that Jackson's waiting. Waiting for truth and honesty and for Cam to _follow orders_ and _do what he's been told_ and suddenly he can't breathe against the pressure in his chest, because he's been waiting _(hoping)_ for this for so long and he knows it's his salvation _(grace through works and the hope of Heaven)_ and it's hard _(it's agony)_ to reach out for it and he couldn't do it if it were only what he wanted but Cam knows it's what he needs.

"I need," he says, and each word, each syllable, is like a weight of iron chain, being bound on him, being lifted from him. "You. To. Help. Me." He can't breathe, he has to fling his head back to gasp for air, and Jackson's hand slides to the back of his neck, holding him, cradling him _(Jackson won't let him fall.)_ He opens his eyes and stares at the ceiling, at the shadows moving there. "I can't do this any more," he whispers, as if he's reading words written there. It's easier than thinking he's telling the truth.

"You're wrong," Jackson tells him, and there's no pity _(no mercy)_ in his voice. "You've just been trying to do it alone. That's been your mistake. We'll correct it now."

Jackson's hand is still on the back of his neck, not resting there but gripping, holding on with a pressure just short of pain, and it's that, that _touch,_ that lets Cam lower his head and look at him again. It's hard, and Cam's done a lot of hard things in his life, but he suddenly realizes that all anyone has ever asked of him _(all most of them ever asked)_ was bravery and a willingness to sacrifice himself _(and it wasn't a little thing, but it was something he could give.)_ This is different. He doesn't know who he'll be if he takes himself apart _(lets Jackson take him apart)_ this way. Doesn't know if he'll like that man. Doesn't know if that man will be able to do the job that's the thing Cam defines himself by. _You're going to help me?_ he thinks, and he can't ask the question aloud, even for confirmation, even for reassurance, because he's said those words once tonight and it took all the strength he has. He feels fine-drawn with exhaustion, with a weariness so deep that all he wants to do is lay his head down in Jackson's lap and _weep._

Jackson's close to him, leaning in, hands still on him, and when Cam lowers his head to look Jackson tucks his chin a fraction, just enough that suddenly the lenses of his glasses are transparent. In the shadows, Jackson's eyes are no color at all. His gaze catches Cam's and holds it.

"You're stronger than you think you are. I'll show you. If you'll let me."

"Tell me what to do," Cam says, and his voice is so low it's barely a whisper, and in other circumstances, other contexts, the words would be a request for information, an offer to cooperate. That's not what he's saying. That's not what he means. _Please, please, tell me what to do. Yes. Show me. Please. Help me._ He needs and he needs so much, so many things -- dark and shameful and shocking and forbidden and unthinkable -- and he's lost and alone and he's been that way for too long and he doesn't know where to go or what to do and this isn't the way things should be and Jackson knows the way out of all of it.

Jackson studies his face for a moment, as if he's looking for some final piece of information there, and suddenly Cam wants to beg Jackson to tell him whatever secrets Jackson knows, to tell him what Jackson sees when he looks at him. Then Jackson shifts away, taking his hands from Cam, and the absence of Jackson's touch is like a blow.

"Take off your clothes," Jackson says, "and kneel." 

His voice is even and pleasant and conversational, and because of that it takes Cam a moment to realize what he's heard. What Jackson has said to him _(ordered him to do.)_ He feels shock and embarrassment and desire and a raging clawing _need_ that's stronger than panic, and it's _need_ that goads him to his feet _(fingers shaking and clumsy as they work the buttons of his shirt)_ before Cam realizes that he's moved. He doesn't think as he strips off each item of clothing, laying them over the back of the couch at Jackson's direction. Doesn't think as he toes off his shoes. His tags are the last _(the hardest of all to give up)_ but he can't be that man anymore unless Jackson can show him some way to do it.

And he doesn't think as he kneels _(where Jackson tells him to kneel)_ on the carpet at Jackson's feet. He's so hard that he aches with it, but that's want, not need. 'Need' is what's been clawing at his insides waking and sleeping for so many weeks that even the possibility it might go away makes Cam groan aloud.

And Jackson tells him to put his hands down on his knees and not lift them again until Jackson tells him he can, and then Jackson reaches out and places his fingertips against Cam's temple, and Cam bows forward as if he's being pulled _(but Jackson isn't)_ and rests his cheek against Jackson's thigh. He feels Jackson's fingers stroke through his hair, trace over his neck _(where there is no chain)_ and he breathes in the scent of clean cotton and warm flesh and feels the softness of the fabric and the touch of Jackson's hand and all he's thinking, all he's feeling, is desire to follow the orders he's been given so that Jackson continues to approve, because Jackson's approval means Cam's getting it right. The pain and the fear and the anger all drain away _(it's only as they go that Cam really realizes they were there at all.)_ Not gone, not forever, but they aren't his problem now, they're Jackson's, and that knowledge brings Cam peace.

"There's nothing wrong with this, Cameron," Jackson says, and his voice is quiet and comforting, his hand still gently stroking. "Sometimes you need to stop. If you don't, you'll break. You need to know what you want. And what you need."

For just a moment Cam thinks that isn't fair: he's always thought he knew what he wanted, and he doesn't think he's ever known what he's needed. But here, now, tonight, he knows both answers. He rubs his cheek against Jackson's thigh, and he hears Jackson make a sound of satisfaction, as if things are going as they should. Jackson keeps his hand on Cam's head as he reaches up to the waistband of his pants -- Cam senses it more than sees it -- and then Jackson is working the drawstring loose one-handed, sliding his fingers under Cam's jaw, lifting Cam's head.

This is what he wants. It's the answer to the only question Jackson asked, the question Cam didn't need to answer because Jackson already knew the answer. Why did Cam come here tonight?

For this.

He leans forward, rising up on his knees, clumsy without the use of his hands, but he's been in the Air Force over ten years and he knows how to remember and follow orders when he's been given them. Jackson is hard; he has a hand clasped around the base of his cock, lifting it to Cam's lips, and Cam takes the head into his mouth, laps at it with his tongue, _tastes_ it, and the buried painful impossible impulses _(thoughts and desires and unacknowledged fantasies)_ he hasn't wanted to own up to resolve themselves with wrenching clarity, vanishing, taking on bright reality. He opens his mouth wider, taking Jackson deeper _(cock down his throat and it's bad, it's dirty, only bad dirty boys suck cock, and he is, he has been, one of those boys and he doesn't care any more)_ and it's want, and it's need, and Jackson's knuckles brush his lips, and Jackson's hand cups the back of his head, and if he's lost _(still lost)_ at least Cam's no longer alone.

Jackson's hand doesn't bear him down, just as Jackson didn't push him forward _(didn't push him back down onto the couch earlier.)_ It's what's inside of Cam that does that, the thing Jackson saw and is setting loose, the thing Cam has kept locked away for so long without even knowing it was there. And somehow doing that was lying, and now _(somehow)_ he's telling the truth _(with his lips, his tongue, his mouth, his body)_ and it's a relief to be honest. To get what he wants.

What he needs.

And he wants to please Jackson, to be good, to do well, to do right, and the world has narrowed down to this, a simple act with a beginning and an end _(a thing he's done before -- other times, other places, other men -- Cam knows how to please.)_

He wants to touch _(longs to touch)_ but that's been forbidden, and the yearning makes him pant and gasp and tremble, gripping his knees until his fingers ache, and he laps and sucks and _serves_ in all the ways he knows, and the cock in his mouth _(in his throat)_ against his tongue is sweet and thick and heavy, and his jaws ache with opening and his back is bowed, and when Jackson comes Cam sucks and licks and swallows, whimpering with the pulsing heavy untended tightness in his groin. He sucks at the weight in his mouth until it's clean and soft, licking at Jackson's fingers, mouthing at all he can reach until Jackson's hand moves from the back of his head to the side of his jaw _(stroking, commanding),_ and Cam sits back.

His shoulders ache and burn and his jaw is sore. Jackson rubs his thumb over Cam's lower lip, and Cam trembles. "You can move your hands now," Jackson says, sitting back, lowering his hand. "I want you to make yourself come."

Just hearing Jackson say that is almost enough to do it. Cam closes his eyes.

"No," Jackson says. "Look at me."

So Cam does _(what he's been told to, been ordered to)_ and he lifts his hands from his knees _(stiffly, awkwardly),_ to touch himself. And Jackson smiles, just a little, when Cam closes one hand around the shaft of his cock and cradles his balls with the other, and for one dizzying moment it's as if it isn't _him_ touching himself, it's _Jackson_ touching him, and he moans as he squeezes and begins to stroke, and Jackson hums in approval, nodding just a little, and Cam is watching Jackson's face, and Jackson is watching _him_ as he touches himself, and Jackson's eyes, Jackson's attention, they're like another pair of hands on his body, and Cam rubs harder. Faster. He's on display and he doesn't care, doesn't care about the dry rasp of calloused hands on tender skin; all he cares about is chasing that building spike of pleasure, more intense than anything he's ever imagined. And: "Yes," Jackson says, and Cam comes, slick and messy, come on his hands, on his cock, on his belly, and it's good, so good, the pleasure _(the relief, the obedience)_ of it makes him moan and whine and bite his lip, and Jackson sees it all.

When he's spent and finished Cam kneels there, cupping himself in sticky hands. His eyes are open, fixed on Jackson's face, and Cam waits, without expectation, without anticipating, for the next order he will be given _(reprieve, release, to lay down that burden of responsibility, of decision, even for a little while.)_

"There's a bathroom off the hall," Jackson says, nodding in that direction. "Go and clean yourself up."

Cam gets to his feet, staggering a little at the liberation of cramped muscles held in an unfamiliar position for so long. He breathes deeply as he finds his balance, then walks toward the bathroom on unsteady legs and does as he's told. When he comes back _(still naked, and he wishes he'd grabbed his shorts, at least, on the way, but he wasn't told to),_ Jackson is sitting with his glass in his hand, clothing set to rights, staring into the candles, and for a moment Cam isn't sure whether the last --hour? --half-hour? happened at all. He stops and stands there, uncertain of what to do now.

Jackson looks up at him and smiles, the same cool smile he gave Cam at the door, and it makes Cam's stomach flutter just a little, and he feels a sense of uneasy comfort. He's been trying to get Jackson to pay attention for as long as he's known the man, and now Jackson is.

"You can get dressed now, Mitchell, and go," Jackson tells him. Still calm, still matter-of-fact, as if what's just happened _(what they've done, what Cam's done)_ is nothing unusual at all. "You're to come back here next Friday at the same time and be ready to do whatever I tell you to do. Don't be early, and don't be late. Do you understand?"

Cam nods, and then realizes he should speak. "Yea-- Yes." He stifles the 'sir' before it reaches his lips, buries the other word that wants to rise up even deeper, where he can't hear it. He doesn't want to hear it _(he wonders if Jackson knows all those buried words are there and what they are.)_ He turns away and starts to dress. Jackson is still staring into the flames.

He puts his tags on last. The chain is cold and heavy against his skin.

"You can let yourself out," Jackson says when Cam is dressed, so Cam does.

And then he's standing in the hallway, with the bright lights of the normal world shining down on him, and it's several minutes before he can move any further. The unreality of what's just happened _(what he's just done)_ is so intense that he can't quite get his mind around it. _Later,_ Cam tells himself. _I'll think about it later._ But when he does finally walk away _(taking the first step is as hard as taking the first step into Jackson's apartment was)_ he has the strange sense he's leaving a part of himself behind, in Jackson's care. And he's not sure that 'care' is the right word, and he's not sure that it isn't, any more than he's sure that the part of himself he's walking away from is the part he needs _(wanted)_ to give up.

But he feels lighter.

Free.

It's only when he gets down to his car and climbs inside that Cam thinks to look at his watch. The numbers on the dial say 2240, and he runs the math in his head and can't quite believe it. It seems as if weeks and months and years have passed _(should have passed)_ instead of less than two hours. But lives can change in minutes. His has _(again; tonight; he's not quite sure how yet.)_

He slips the key into the ignition, starts the car, and drives slowly away.

#

He has done and been many things over the course of his life. Perhaps this _(what he will do now)_ is the strangest. No one has ever trusted him so completely _(and with so little reason)_ as Cameron Mitchell just has. Despite everything that has happened to him _(despite all that he is now)_ there is a strange sort of sweetness to Mitchell. Strange, because it is so unexpected: beneath the anger and the pain lies a sort of willful and determined innocence; an insistence that the world and what it holds is good, or can be.

And though Daniel intends to remake Cameron Mitchell _(break him and change him and transform him completely)_ that quality is something he will leave untouched. And when -- someday -- he has led Mitchell to find his way out of the lost places, Daniel wonders if he will find his own way out as well.

###

**Author's Note:**

> One night some while back, Synecdochic and I got silly in her journal and took prompts up to a cutoff point, after which we divvied them up between ourselves, with the suppliers of the prompts finding out who'd picked what when they were posted. Kazbaby's prompt came in too late to be used, so I wrote her Cameron/Daniel prompt as a gift fic. The prompt was:
> 
>  
> 
> _Without a gleaning_  
>  of purpose in life,  
> we have no vision,  
> we live in strife,  
> \--or let blood fall  
> on a suicide knife.  
> 
> 
> PS: If you think this story kind of has a strong Eurydice'verse vibe to it, you're right. Not canon, though.


End file.
